“Don’t blame yourself,” Callum said. “That won’t solve anything.”
Callum was looking at Clay. She wondered if his family knew about Colin. He’d told her only Ford did but not as much as her.
Or maybe this family was just so close that they knew it was in Clay’s nature to blame himself if something went wrong.
“I know,” she said. “I’ll work on it. I promise. If I could have prevented this I would have. I’m such a fool. I feel as if I led him on but didn’t even know.”
“You didn’t,” Clay said. “Never think that. He was ill. He knew it.”
“I saw more signs of it, but there was so much going on with everything else, I just dismissed him.”
And dismissing him seemed to have escalated it in Karl’s mind. That she took him for granted.
“I should have listened to you when you said things were done in the house and you didn’t remember doing them,” Clay said.
She let out a not so funny laugh. “And I should have pushed more. I was distracted.”
She laid her head on his shoulder. He’d been sitting next to her. He barely left her side, even spending the night next to her in the hospital.
If he got up to leave for something, he didn’t do it unless another family member was present.
She hoped she didn’t have a bodyguard now. There was no way she could handle that.
“How many people can boast that they had four different people mad at them for completely different reasons?” Clay asked.
“It’s not something to brag about. Or even be proud of. I guess I need someone strong enough to keep me in line. Maybe even keep me safe.”
His arm squeezed her shoulder. “Yeah. I might be the only one who can do it. If you believe in me.”
“I think that’s our cue to leave,” Gale said.
“You don’t have to go,” she argued. “You just got here.”
“We are going back to my house,” Brooke said. “I’m making dinner. You and Clay can come down when you’re done talking.”
Meredith watched his family leave. The support they’d given her had been insurmountable. She was someone full of crazyamounts of words and yet she’d never be able to express them all.
“We’ll be there,” she said.
“You need to rest,” Clay said.
“I need to eat. I need to be around people. People I’m comfortable with. I won’t stay locked up away from the world. It’s not healthy and not me.”
“You tell him,” Ash said, then shut the door.
“My family thinks you’re perfect for me.”
Her heart sank a tiny bit. “I appreciate they do, but I care more about what you think than them.”
“Do you?” he asked. “What do you think of me?”
“We’ll play it this way. You need someone to keep you grounded. You need that in your blood to remind you of where you’ve been, where you need to go, and who you are. To bind you somewhere. First it was by loyalty.”
“Now it’s by love,” he said. “I’m bound by you here.”
Her eyes went wide. “I’m right?”
“You are,” he said. “You get me when so many others don’t. Why doubt yourself?”
